One more point relevant to my comments that NDFM design can begin now. In any NDFM, virtually all of the important stuff happens off-chain. The disbursement mechanism itself affects the consensus rules, of course, but the disbursement is inevitably the result of an off-chain process. I strongly encourage folks to go have a look at Owocki’s new book: Onchain Capital Allocation Handbook; he’s currently leading a DAO that’s building retroactive grant funding tools for use anywhere in the crypto ecosystem and is looking for partners willing to give those tools a try. Others across the crypto space are working on this, and it might be possible for the Zcash community to even take something “off the shelf” like that. So I think it’s incorrect to assume that there will be a long dry period before a NDFM can be deployed.
It is all of the off-chain stuff (design/ consensus building) that keeps me from being optimistic. Using this current Dev Fund debate (or the prior one) as the case study, the evidence shows that 1-year isn’t enough time.
I really hope to be proven wrong!
Let’s also keep the timing in mind, deploying the NDFM tomorrow (with a magic genie) doesn’t really add value to the ecosystem for a long time because ZEC won’t flow into it’s control in meaningful quantities until months after the Halving/ Lockbox deployment.
Everyone is, you as well. We don’t know what the NDFM will be like. But what I am saying is not an assumption, is a reality: Independent Contributors who are grantees have no runway. They don’t have a company behind that can sustain them while the funding stream that pays for their grants is put on a lockbox.
Yes, they (we) need to. But as you do as well, their work on Zcash is a professional activity grantees do. You may notice that I’m trying to de-personalize the discussion and to not get into anyone’s finances. But It comes out strange that after all the discussions of “we need a dev fund mechanism because we can’t rely on good intentions in such a competitive industry” now we are appealing to “oh, let’s hold funds from everyone so they are motivated to build this funding model” It is not coherent with the arguments that support the existence of a “dev fund” mechanism.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you on this, but I can’t avoid to think that this point of view is highly speculative and full of (optimistic) assumptions. There could be the case that someone comes up with a phenomenal NDFM that’s easy to roll out and we launch it next week (not very likely to happen unfortunately), or as @noamchom said, maybe Zooko’s Whale friend jumps out of the water and throws 10-20K ZEC to ZCG’s treasury with its big fin before submerging to the cold blue abyss of the ocean, that could also happen.
I can’t talk about what’s probable. It would not be responsible for me to do, because as a community, we are trying to make an informed decision. So that’s why I’m trying to describe the facts that I do know from my own experience working with other teams as community developer and as a grantee myself.
I’m not saying I’m right and everyone else is wrong either. The best I can do is to provide insight from my experience. It is my opinion that although well intentioned and good hearted, the 20% lockbox alternative underestimates the impact of defunding ZCG on the ecosystem specially on small grantees and independent contributors.
This point needs to be made more obvious, as it’s not at all clear from
(italics mine)
It could be interpreted as a minimum.
I edited the post for clarity. Thanks @ambimorph.
Question @aquietinvestor: so in November, ZCG will have 91,000+37,000=128,000 ZEC. Plus, $742,000 in USD.
Does the USD amount $742,000 represent all the funds that have been committed to approved grants? Does this mean that the 128,000 ZEC, approximately $3.8M at current ZEC price, remain uncommitted to any grants? Is that the current size of ZCG’s runway?
(Less $500K in pending proposals, so ~$3.3M)
How much is needed to sustain current grant recipients for one additional year?
I’ll be honest, I sat down to write a list of pros and cons for the ZCG+Lockbox proposal, and got stuck on these questions. Will pausing the Dev Fund for ZCG for a year actually affect the current grant recipients? Keeping them funded has been my main motivation behind this proposal, but I question that narrative now. If in November, ZCG will have enough funds to keep the current grant recipients going for an additional year, Kris’ proposal makes more sense.
While no one questions the integrity of individual ZCG members, ZCG’s effectiveness is very much in question. Also, community support for some of the current grants is questionable. If ZCG has enough funds to cover projects that are recognized to have value (like ZecHub), do we want to give it more direct funding while there has been no meaningful change within ZCG? Do we want continue to enable ZCG to allocate funds to new projects without major structural changes that address the issues?
A reminder of the recent survey results:
I would like to see ZCG undergo massive changes before it’s given responsibility for any additional community funds.
For example: Usually, a company needs to allocate about 20% of its budget to marketing, more if it needs to be aggressive and win new market share. A project cannot take off without a solid marketing budget and a coherent GTM strategy. In an ideal world, I would like to see the current ZCG and its budget split up into two organizations:
• 25% to a ZCG-like org, responsible for community- and marketing-focused grants
• 75% to a ZCG-like org that is solely focused on technology grants
That would make it easier to elect members with the right expertise for each org. Perhaps the technology branch of this new ZCG should actively encourage current Zcash developers to join the board. And the two orgs should coordinate.
With the new NDFM changes like that are possible. All kinds of changes are possible. @nuttycom’s “lockbox only” proposal sets the funds aside, so we can thoroughly consider all the options (and there are many!!) before committing any of those funds to the established channels that have proven to be deeply flawed. If at the end of November, ZCG has the budget to cover current recipients, we need the opportunity to completely rethink ZCG and its future role/format.
Hi @peacemonger. I’ll respond to your question about ZCG’s finances early tomorrow morning, but I wanted to briefly address the results of the ZURE survey:
First off, I believe this question is flawed because it asks respondents to rank their confidence in leadership for two entities, while the third is about confidence in the ability to allocate funds to projects that increase user adoption. You’re sort of comparing apples to orangutans here. The results would have been more meaningful if you applied “user adoption” to all three entities.
Overall, user adoption for Zcash is low, so if you tie this to a question about ZCG, it’s no surprise the results are below average. However, looking at the projects ZCG has funded, it’s clear we’ve actually helped increase user adoption. For instance, the Free2z community is very vibrant, with people doing real work and getting paid in ZEC. Additionally, we’ve funded the ZecHub Bounty Program, which has successfully allocated ZEC to users for various educational and community initiatives.
Both of these ZCG-funded projects have not only increased user adoption but have also significantly helped grow the Zcash community.
I take the results of this question to heart and want to see ZCG improve the score. This question focuses on the past six months, and the results may have been influenced by the Zcash Media delays, which is certainly no excuse. The Alternative Helios Polls ranked our performance higher, but evaluated the ZCG program since its inception. Regardless, I think we can do better.
Both survey scores are lower than we’d like to see, and I believe we need to work hard to improve the community’s confidence in ZCG no matter which Dev Fund proposal is implemented.
My post wasn’t about comparing. Let’s not compare. The score is not great on its own, no matter how you display it. I think it’s actually worse on its own. Not a passing grade.
The effectiveness score in Q16 is also not great.
I’m really surprised by your argument against this question. You reviewed my survey before it went live and saw no problems with these questions. After I published the report, you and I have discussed this exact page and how the results are displayed. Someone brought up similar concerns, and you disagreed with them then. You liked that question and its context.
Later, you acknowledged this question and the data as relevant, which I thought was really cool.
Either way the scores are what they are. That’s the feedback from over 100 Zcashers.
Those polls didn’t provide a time limit, which meant a respondent that started tracking Zcash community 1 year ago and a respondent that joined 4 years ago were rating completely different periods. That’s “apples to oranges.” Performance evaluations are done quarterly for very obvious reasons.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but were those polls taken exclusively by ZCG grant recipients?
I don’t know if we need to argue about the survey results right now since it’s really not the main point of my posts above. I simply highlighted previous community feedback, which shows that there might be a problem.
Today, Zcashers have a new decision to make. In order to make that new decision, we need to understand ZCG’s financials and commitments. If after seeing and understanding that information, the community decides to fund an extension for ZCG, I’ll support that decision 100%.
While unfortunately I don’t think it’s appropriate to publicly pre-empt grantees’ requests, ZCG has discussed estimates on this matter. Based on my projections, from now until November 2025, I believe we might receive requests totalling over $3.3m USD from existing recipients alone. This would cover either a continuation of their work or additional integration efforts needed to bring their projects to fruition (e.g., wallet/tool/app integration). It’s important to note that ZCG doesn’t intend, and likely won’t, fund all of these $3.3m in proposals - this figure represents potential requests, not guaranteed funding.
In the interest of transparency, I want to emphasize that as a ZCG member, I will advocate for funding a significant portion of these potential requests from existing recipients, provided they align with our current expectations and goals. However, it’s crucial to note that all proposals will continue to undergo our rigorous evaluation process to ensure responsible allocation of resources.
While there are some obvious grants the community may wish to see funding continue in 2025 it might help to also reflect on the list of grants approved in the last financial year:
Including dev fund allocation until November 2024, and without additional funding, ZCG is expected to have just over 120k ZEC in reserves that could be used between now and November 2025. Given ZCG’s current reserves and the volatility of the ZEC price, this budget for 2025 will likely be constrained without additional funding. This may necessitate rejecting more grants than we would have otherwise, potentially hindering ZCG’s ability to attract and fund new contributors to the Zcash project.
Moreover, it’s crucial to consider the broader ecosystem. ECC and ZF will not receive funding under either of the current proposals. While they have reserves, there’s a possibility that they may need to limit expenditure or reduce the scope of their work due to funding constraints. Historically, ZCG has been ready and eager to step in and fill any gaps left by such moves. We remain committed to maximising our impact, but without sufficient funding, our ability to execute on this commitment may be limited.
ZCG is also exploring paths to independence with the help of FPF. This initiative will require allocating resources to ensure ZCG becomes more independent, which we believe is crucial for contributing to a new funding model. Continued funding for ZCG will facilitate this transition by ensuring we have the necessary resources to cover associated costs while maintaining our ability to fund grants.
I encourage voters to reflect not just on survey results, but to focus on the tangible outcomes and the grants ZCG has funded. Consider whether you want to see this work continue and expand. Without adequate funding, we may find ourselves in the regrettable position of having to reject more grants and potentially discourage new recipients if Zcash isn’t able to fund or support their proposals.
While none of us can predict the future with certainty, there’s a growing possibility that even with ZCG’s current ZEC reserves, without additional funding we may have to make difficult decisions about which projects to fund. By ensuring ZCG is funded, we can maintain our readiness to fill potential gaps in the ecosystem, support ongoing projects, and welcome new contributors to the Zcash community throughout the next 18 months.
Nurturing Growth: Why ZCG Funding Through 2025 is Crucial for Zcash’s Future 
Let’s talk about the exciting possibilities a new funding model could bring to Zcash. Imagine a future where innovative projects flourish, where diverse teams from around the globe contribute their unique perspectives, and where the Zcash ecosystem grows more vibrant and resilient with each passing day. That’s the promise of a well-designed, decentralized funding model.
This new approach could:
-
Empower a wider range of contributors and attract fresh talent -
Foster greater innovation and experimentation -
Enhance decentralization and reduce reliance on any single entity -
Increase community involvement in funding decisions and align with Zcash priorities -
Promote open competition for resources, encouraging broader participation -
Improve accountability through purpose-driven funding and outcome-based grants -
Increase ecosystem resilience and flexibility in adapting to changes -
Enable more targeted, community-approved development efforts
Sounds great, right? But here’s the catch - we risk sabotaging these very goals if we cut off ZCG’s funding prematurely.
The Risk of Funding Shortfall
ZCG has some reserves left, which may be sufficient for existing projects and teams. However, this doesn’t paint the full picture of our ecosystem’s needs. The real concern lies in our ability to sustain and grow our momentum. Here’s what we’re facing:
-
Increased rejection rate: Without additional funding, ZCG might have to significantly increase its rejection rate for new proposals, potentially stifling innovation and limiting our ecosystem’s growth. -
Hitting pause on expansion: We may have to halt plans for new initiatives or scaling up successful projects, effectively putting our progress on pause. -
Limited opportunities for developers: With restricted funding, we risk forcing talented developers to look elsewhere for opportunities, potentially losing valuable contributors to our ecosystem. -
Momentum at risk: The current momentum we’ve built could slow down or even reverse, as we’d be constrained in our ability to fund new ideas and expand ongoing efforts.
This situation doesn’t just affect new projects - it impacts our entire ecosystem’s ability to grow, adapt, and thrive. By ensuring continued funding for ZCG through 2025, we’re not just maintaining the status quo. We’re preserving our capacity to innovate, expand, and attract new talent - all crucial elements for Zcash’s long-term success and decentralization efforts.
And here’s the kicker - we could end up with a less decentralized Zcash. Ironic, isn’t it? In our rush to implement a new, more decentralized funding model, we might actually concentrate power and resources in fewer hands.
The True Meaning of Decentralization
Remember, decentralization isn’t just about how funds are distributed - it’s about nurturing a diverse, robust ecosystem of contributors. If we lose the projects and teams that ZCG has been supporting, we’re taking a big step backward in terms of ecosystem resilience and flexibility.
Yes, recent polls have shown a preference for moving away from direct funding. But we need to look beyond simple yes/no questions and focus on the outcomes we want to achieve. The community wants a stronger, more decentralized Zcash with targeted, community-approved development efforts - and that’s what continuing ZCG funding helps us build towards.
Building a Bridge to the Future
So, while we’re all excited about the potential of a new funding model that promotes open competition and improves accountability, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Keeping ZCG funded during this transition isn’t just about maintaining the status quo - it’s about building a bridge to that more decentralized, innovative, and resilient future we all want to see.
After all, what good is a shiny new funding model if we’ve lost the very contributors it was meant to empower and the projects it was designed to foster? Let’s focus on outcomes, not theoretical debates. The future of Zcash depends on it. 
I wasn’t aware.
Does this mean no more veto by ZF and no more KYC obligations for recipients?
for context: [zcon4 talk by zooko]
I liked what you said here:
It is just an average score. It doesn’t tell us why people rated the ZCG that way, so I think our first step is to figure out why.
If I had to guess, I would say that the way Zcash Media was handled was a big factor, and the fact that ZCG is not an independent organization – it limits what it can do and how it operates and it creates the wrong set of incentives, and based on results in the same survey I think a lot of people would support ZCG becoming its own organization. […]
It’s hard to answer that question today with the information I have, but first I would ask “Why?” It needs more research.
Given that the hybrid solution is a concrete step toward an independent ZCG, then I think this fits what your research shows the community wants.
Although, of course I agree we could and should ask for more feedback on how to improve ZCG’s effectiveness. Many of us already have ideas about that!
ZF would have no veto power with ZCG under FPF. FPF would have veto power only in cases where ZCG wanted to approve a grant that for whatever reason ran afoul of Cayman law (which is actually no different from ZF’s veto power re: US law). However, it’s unlikely that would happen since FPF would communicate any potential issues far in advance of a ZCG vote on a specific problematic grant. In reality, “veto power” is only a mechanism to ensure compliance with jurisdictional laws and regulations.
FPF’s board has set the KYC limit threshold at $25,000. FPF will not require KYC for grants/grantees under $25,000. Grantees will only have to acknowledge via a checkbox that they aren’t a citizen of one of a small group of sanctioned countries.
The KYC threshold will be periodically reviewed with input from our Cayman-based legal team.
I second @pacu 's observation on there being significant optimism underlying the NDFM (Non Direct Funding Mechanism) implementation time.
I also think it’s important to gauge how accurate various estimates of technical implementation times have been recently.
I miscalculated optimistically in several different dimensions when attempting to predict the time to ZIP317 implementation. Not only did I miscalculate up front, but I continued to be overly optimistic until the day before we actually released. This is important information for the community to consider.
That having been said, my overall performance on predicting the Finsight grant was off by a matter of about 10 weeks for a grant that was initiated in February 2023.
There are a lot of caveats, when it comes to analyzing estimates. Here’s one:
Our work is highly dependent on collaborations with lots of community members, and our velocity is directly impacted by that. Probably most significant is the work that @Honza and @Lukas from the ECC did to support our transition away from Obj-C, and to support BackGround Sync. ZingoLabs teams aren’t in the habit of d0xxing their members, but to complete this work @Juanky had to work in 4 different programming languages that are not his day-to-day focus: Obj-C, Swift, Kotlin, and Rust. We’re not a big team, but who needs a big team when you have a Hacker like @Juanky ?
There’s something really critical to notice about the time to completion and having correct estimates… when ZingoLabs doesn’t produce… it doesn’t get paid. This is true in the current funding model. While we were working to finish ZIP317, in the 10-ish weeks since April 5th, we didn’t get a single Zenny. Of course that means that we didn’t cost the community for our unpredictable delay.
Now to bring it all together. @daira is on the record as promoting the idea that the ECC should focus on their wallet Zashi, and the ECC team who (in the form of @nuttycom ) is now predicting the NDFM will be easy to implement, is working on a ZIP320 implementation.
What was the ECC’s initial estimate of time to implement ZIP320?
Does the ECC wallet team get paid when its estimates are off?
Zingoistas including the Community Member that came out of the Internet to diagnose a critical bug that was affecting the most common mobile platform on earth eat when we produce.
I don’t want to overstate… but in many cases I have evidence to support that that statement is not hyperbolic. Think about that.
We’re already being paid for producing, isn’t that one of the communities aspirations with changing the funding model?
We’re already paid for production, and some of us live hand-to-mouth. Now we’re hearing that some folks who:
(a) get paid no matter what
(b) are no better at estimating time to completion for complex technical innovations than we are
are advocating that we should adopt their ideologically motivated funding model immediately because they feel like it’s probably not too hard to implement.
OK… maybe… but maybe that’s going to pay-back the community members that saved all our bacon in the past, by putting them onto to some pretty fucking mean streets.
The aim of ZingoLabs is to build the tools that let the largest possible population benefit from the unique properties of Zcash. We want to provide an intuitive and powerful interface to safe (private) multisig/threshold-sig, so that any community can combine and leverage its wealth as it sees fit.
This was our intention when we planned Finsight (which is radically augmented in cases where shared wealth is being managed), and continues to be our goal.
Zcash has always aimed to provide economic empowerment to everyone. Zingo wants to provide
that in the form of an app that the members of any household, village, tribe, or globally distributed group of collaborators can use to replace their bank.
Replace it as the place to store wealth, replace it as the place to combine wealth, replace it as the place to earn interest on your wealth.
On our immediate roadmap:
- offer subscription model to supplement: Donation, Tips, Vote for Nym
- provide a ZIP320 implementation
- contribute to zcashd/lightwalletd deprecation
- continue to integrate Nym support
- collaborate with ZonDax to provide ledger support
2025:
- complete Nym integration to provide user safety
- Build on Hardware Wallet support to extend to multi-sig support
- Complete an intuitive multi/threshold-sig interface built on FROST
- Build on shared value stores to support interest accrual
- Build on shared value stores to support subscription/tipping for varied services
- Port DEX implementations from other wallets, or implement our own
For all of the above including contributions to zcashd deprecation, hardware-wallet support, Nym integration, and multi-sig interface support we’ll need ~$600_000.00. This will enable us to operate for the 17 months, and by the end of that time we’ll have substantial data from multiple alternative funding streams including at least:
- multiple subscription/donation models
- partnerships with other organizations including relatively new participants in the Zcash ecosystem like Nym (full disclosure ZingoLabs holds Nym tokens)
- percentage fees for novel services: Liquidity Pool Fees for DEXes
And hopefully:
- percentage fees for staking funds on a new PoS consensus algorithm.
Our current grant for the ZavaX bridge between Zcash, Avalanche, and beyond, using a new Avalanche L1 called red·bridge, covers the software development of the bridge. As @zancas says, we too are paid when we deliver software and not before.
Next, we deploy the bridge. We have completed a budget for a smooth deployment with the highest opportunity for success that includes:
- an audit (in addition to one we would like from Least Authority)
- an expansion of the dev team
- marketing
- creation of a red·bridge foundation to issue the ZAX token,
- additional legal expenses
It comes to $1.5M. We have additional fundraising avenues besides ZCG, but we would like ZCG’s help for approximately one third, $500K. This would be an amount that would be useful to receive as a grant for operational reasons. It would also be symbolically important to the Avalanche and larger crypto community. Indeed, it’s the support so far from ZCG (financial and advisory), Zcash Foundation (asking me to speak at ZconV), and ECC (inviting us to attend Zeboot and Z|ECC meetings) that have shown the broader community that building and launching this bridge is a priority of the Zcash community, and in turn, it has become their priority as well.
Re concerns about ZCG’s goal of increasing user adoption, the ZavaX/red·bridge project has the potential to increase user adoption of Zcash by orders of magnitude. That is our expectation.
Hope that helps!
Quick question @nuttycom
Could you please describe your role at the ECC, and relate it to ZCG funded projects that would be dramatically affected by the complete defunding of the ZCG?